153. MAYA ANGELOU: Phenomenal Woman

Maya Angelou (1928-2014) was a modern day Renaissance woman – author, poet, activist, dancer, singer, director, teacher and hero. After her death last month, I was flooded with submissions from you to adapt one of her poems. I was a bit daunted when choosing which one to adapt since there are so many great poems to choose from which mean so much to so many people. I finally narrowed it down to her most famous three. Still I Rise, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and Phenomenal Woman. I came up with a few ideas for the first two, but my concepts were a bit serious and melancholy. I wanted to draw a fun and uplifting comic to celebrate Angelou’s incredible life, rather than mourn her passing … so Phenomenal Woman it was!

About the scenes depicted in the comic: I read in a few obituaries that as a girl Angelou was “packed off by her family to California after sassing a white store clerk in Arkansas” which I illustrated as the first scene. In the 1950s Angelou spent many years as a popular calypso dancer. In fact, she changed her name from Marguerite Johnson to Maya Angelou around that time to help draw crowds to her performances. While living in Ghana, Angelou befriended Malcolm X and later supported Martin Luther King Jr and the NAACP during the civil rights struggle. She also called Nelson Mandela a friend, meeting him shortly after his release from prison. Finally, in 1993, Angelou recited her poem On the Pulse of Morning at Bill Clinton’s inauguration.

Visit Maya Angelou’s official website to find out more about this phenomenal woman.

I’ve heard this poem read twice in the last weeks by beautiful spoken word artists. At one reading someone commented that Maya Angelou’s spirit is free to live on in all of us now. You have captured this beautifully and it brought a tear to my eye. Thank you.

That was a phenomenal adaptation of Maya Angelou’s poem. I do believe she would have approved. Would you share it on Facebook, so that we can share it with friends and get more people aware of Zen Pencils?

you wrote it well and Gav gave us his creative side. We all are grateful for such talent, no matter how the words fit. They still state the same meaning.
We are wealthier for having Maya in our midst and now gone. We are gifted to have Gav and his creative mind flowing into art, we all enjoy. Cheers

Gav, A home run on this tribute to Maya!! Her writings and books were all great works, but this Phenomenally Woman touched so many at a time when we felt a collapse in politics and other arenas. Thank you for giving everyone your talents and reminding us of Greatness in a most amazing Phenomenally Woman!

Hey Gav,
You probably get this a lot, but I just finished binge-reading all your comics and I wanted to commend you on all that you have done. You’ve faced some pretty big fears and created a huge impact with your site and I think that’s awesome.

I’m currently 25 and I am currently trying to establish myself as a life coach and self-help writer. Going through the steps of running your own business and truly testing your own limits is probably one of the most fulfilling and equally terrifying things I’ve ever done. I’ve seen you you write about overcoming your fears of expressing yourself and wrestling with burnout when you lose sight of your passions. I completely relate, and I hope you keep pushing forward.

Hi Gavin! A remarkable tribute to an astonishing poem by a truly phenomenal woman. A lot of your work is very inspiring and I feel compelled to post it on LinkedIn. I noticed you do have a LinkedIn ID but is not very active. A lot of your work and comic strips can bring about a whole new thought process while adding a refreshing new dimension to great thoughts. I would be thrilled if you could post your work on LinkedIn too for all to see. Then I won’t have to post it but simply like it and share it 🙂

Great work, Gav. This is a poem for women all over the world, big and small. Maya was a large woman, and that was part of why this poem reached so deep for me. It reached me as a strong, large woman who does not conform to the U.S. cultural demand of women — to be skinny and sexual, not healthy and strong — where attractiveness should be a product of a woman’s confidence instead of her reason for being.

This is an empowering poem from Maya Angelou, and you have done an amazing job bringing it to life. In an age where girls are trying to uphold beauty standards that aren’t even realistic thanks to digital retouching, this is a powerful message that beauty truly comes from within. I think you made an excellent selection.

This is a bit random, but I just wanted to congratulate you on your drawings. I knew at a glance that I was seeing, for instance, Malcolm X. I didn’t know that he was part of Maya Angelou’s story, and he doesn’t have a standard “caricature” the way Bill Clinton does, but I immediately recognized him.

It’s a surprisingly tricky task to pull off, and I thought I should mention how impressed it made me.

If you haven’t actually seen Maya Angelou perform her Phenomenal Woman poem, you should. (I’m sure it’s somewhere on Youtube.) I saw her in the mid- 90’s, and now, as I read through your comic, I could hear her deep, gentle yet powerful voice. It enhanced your beautiful work that much more to have heard her, too. There was just something about her, you knew she wasn’t acting, she was that sure of herself. She felt all those things she said, even in her 60s or 70s. And she was that certain that we should believe it about ourselves, as well.
Enough rambling. Thank you, Gavin, for an incredible comic! I would love to see you choose a few frames for a poster.

Oh Gav! I really don’t write here much, though perhaps I should, but this is wonderful. I loved how you made these women sexy, daring, strong, dignified, tender… I just find this strip amazing and Maya Angelou said “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel” and Gav: this strip made me feel phenomenal!

Smart home technology is revolutionizing the way people live and play in their homes. Designed to make the inner workings of a home as automated as possible, the technology seeks to integrate home systems and enable residents of a home to control these systems from anywhere.

If you are a lover of cats then the online cat shop can help you in getting this animal that you love in the easiest of manners. If you are a lover of dogs then the online dog shop would help you in owning a dog easily.

The owners of most businesses want their customers properly informed of all products, maintenance and best practice. You’ll notice in a lot of pet stores that fish tanks normally take up all the wall space, in other words there are lots of them. Why? Because they’re very popular.

As a huge Maya’s fan and reader of all her books, the first episode (the shop) is a bit inaccurate. She was older, and she went to buy something to a shop open to anybody, but even so she was treated rudely, and the shop assistant refused to address her as “miss” (as coloured people were addressed with no respect and with ridiculous nicknames). So she protested and she asked to be called with her title, name, and surname. Her grandma had to send her away quickly after that happened to avoid lynching.

BUT this is just my pedantic side speaking. I LOVE THIS, and I think you did an amazing job and definitely portrayed her spirit fully in this work. I feel moved by reading, and the ending is stellar. THANKS!

Technology is an inherent democratizer. Because of the evolution of hardware and software, you’re able to scale up almost anything. It means that in our lifetime everyone may have tools of equal power.

Hi Gavin,
This is by far my favorite poem of all times. I was looking to buy a poster of this but nothing seems to describe it better than your comic. Please I beg you to make it a poster! I would love to hang it in my room
– A fan from Peru

Beautifully describe the characters nice comic cartoon I really Love it thanks also for living other references to follow up you back to the site I Love comic books while in a free moment I just love to read the comic books thanks for sharing with us…